Al-Masudi

10th-century Arab historian, geographer, and traveller

Al-Mas‘udi (Arabic: أبو الحسن علي بن الحسين بن علي المسعودي‎, Abu al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Masʿūdī; c. 896–956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus of the Arabs". Al-Mas‘udi was one of the first to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work, The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems (Arabic: مروج الذهب و معادن الجوهر‎, Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma'adin al-jawhar), a world history. More generally, described as prolific and as a polymath, he was the author of "over twenty" works, which dealt with "a wide variety of religious and secular subjects, including history (both Islamic and universal), geography, the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology."Read more or edit on Wikipedia